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Set your story in a writing class, workshop, or retreat.

Posted in Short Story on May 23, 2025

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✍️ 38 stories

Step into Silence

Shortlisted for Contest #304 ⭐️

Quiet.That was the only rule at The Hollow Pines Writing Retreat. No talking, no phones, no unnecessary noise. Just ink, silence, and the slow unraveling of the self.Margot Eaves had chosen the rules — not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. Words, when spoken, had always seemed slippery to her. Too quick. Too loud. Too dangerous. But words written? Contained in margins, confined in paper and punctuation — those, she trusted.The Hollow Pines cabin stood like a secret in the Vermont woods, far from the cities where dreams were pitched and c...

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The Wrong Workshop

Submitted to Contest #304

TW: Mentions physical gore.Any moment now Mike’s motley crew, which was how he thought of his art group, would be joining him. He turned the radiator up two notches in the attic room that currently served as both studio and workshop.With sheets spread over his most recent canvases, a faintly surreal air hung about the place. Regarded as a successful artist in his heyday even if that was some time ago, the only work on permanent display was the self-portrait painted in oils not long after leaving art school. It depicted a man with white-blond...

28 likes 16 comments 16
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Worth The Registration Fee

Submitted to Contest #304

Ben picked at a piece of icing with his fingernail. The doughnut on the styrofoam plate was obviously a couple days old, and he couldn’t bring himself to take a bite of it. This was the “breakfast provided”, as advertised on the workshop’s flyer; stale doughnuts, various chunks of cantaloupe, pineapple, and honeydew from a plastic platter bought at the closest supermarket, and weak Maxwell House coffee.Twenty minutes in, and the workshop was exactly what Ben had expected it to be. A Days Inn ballroom with a scattering of round 6-top tables w...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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Crystal Lake Inspirational Writing Workshop

Submitted to Contest #304

The flickering fluorescent lights of the old Camp Crystal Lake recreation hall hummed a mournful tune, casting long, distorted shadows across the mismatched folding tables.Dust motes, thick as snowflakes in a blizzard, danced in the anemic glow, giving the whole scene a rather… stale aroma.This was the "Crysyal Lake Inspirational Writing Workshop," an exclusive retreat promising to unlock one's inner literary genius.The current session, however, seemed more likely to unlock one's inner scream.At the head of the room stood Jason Voorhees, unm...

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Retreated

Submitted to Contest #304

Day 1 - How did I get included with this bunch? What exactly is a writer’s group? The court gave me a list to choose from to fulfill my community service. Instead of roadside trash clearance, I checked this by mistake. Guess it pays to read.I need to keep a journal of my experience. My first impression is roadside clearance is more practical. It has better company and simpler rules. But here I am, ten miles from nowhere and fifty from somewhere. How do I turn down the volume on the birds? Before realizing my mistake, I asked the two other gu...

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Two Dragons Walk Into a Writing Retreat

Submitted to Contest #304

If you’ve never seen a dragon try to hold a quill, you’ve missed one of the quiet tragedies of the post-clause era.Thundros Cloudbelch—a name that sounded like a weather complaint and lived up to it—was hunched over a wrought-stone desk at the Smokevault Retreat Hall, scowling at a blank sheet of flame-inscribed parchment as if it had personally insulted his lineage.“‘Memoir,’” he muttered, jaw tight. “‘Mandatory for archival integrity and generational transmission.’ Sounds like execution by ink.”The desk creaked under him. He shifted uncomf...

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They Got What They Paid For

Submitted to Contest #304

It was rumored that renowned romance writer Nina Grant was not only emerging from her ten-year reclusive period but was planning to host writing seminars in her home. Aspiring authors waited with bated breath for any sign of confirmation. When a website link went live with the information, every young writer in the entirety of the New England area submitted their applications online; unsure if they were responding to a hoax or throwing their hats and hopes into the proverbial ring for a seat at Nina’s table; literally. The website for submi...

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Amelia's Worlds

Submitted to Contest #304

Tai knew what love was the moment they finished reading Amelia’s story.They had had glimpses of it before. Over the past few weeks, they had been remembering little moments from their late ten-year relationship that might have been what people called love. There were times as a kid, when they would read late into the night, and fall asleep with a book on their chest, and get woken up by their mother in the morning, shaking her head as she turned off the golden lamp on the bedside table, that felt like love.But if they ever felt the way Ameli...

12 likes 9 comments 9
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The Retreat

Submitted to Contest #304

Dan snoozed all three of his alarms, finally lurching awake to toss back the duvet with his guts parked in his throat at 4:32. Oversleeping meant no time for coffee. Afternoon light glowed dimly around the edges of linty blackout curtains that were half an inch shy of fully covering the window pane but not narrow enough to provoke a return to Lowe’s. He pressed the pads of his fingertips to his temples, silently pleading with the ache that seemed determined to camp out behind his orbital bones to kindly fuck off. He didn’t need all of his br...

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The Last Workshop

Submitted to Contest #304

The Last Workshop The coffee had gone cold an hour ago, but Margaret still clutched the ceramic mug like a lifeline. Around the worn oak table, seven other writers sat in varying degrees of discomfort, their manuscripts scattered before them like evidence of crimes they weren't sure they'd committed."So," said Professor Henley, his reading glasses perched precariously on his nose, "who wants to share first?"The silence stretched like taffy. Autumn leaves performed their annual death dance outside the community center's windows, and Margaret ...

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Writing with One Eye Open

Submitted to Contest #304

Demarco had no beef with artificial intelligence. He just didn’t trust anything that didn’t eat, sleep, or panic before deadlines.So when Professor Rhee wheeled a high-tech monitor into their Writing 214 class and said, “Meet your new writing partner—PENumbra,” Demarco blinked twice, then raised a hand.“Question,” he said. “Did PENumbra pay tuition? Because this is looking like unpaid group work.”The class laughed. Even Professor Rhee cracked a smile. “PENumbra is here to help us push our creative limits. Think of it as a collaborator.”Demar...

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Introspection

Submitted to Contest #304

You must understand that I understand it was a very wrong thing that I did. But her part in it all was far more terrible. “She was justified”, you say? Well, I’d disagree on that, but she treats me well enough these days, although I think she only comes around on account of her smugness. And, oh, the agony I’m in, and she knows it well.Now that I’ve so tactfully captured your interest, dear reader, you could be forgiven for craving a degree of context. It’s a long story, but you’re here to read, so I assume you do not mind, and in assuming s...

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Ophelia

Submitted to Contest #304

I opened my eyes to see the dingy room I’d fallen asleep in. This is my first actual day here. I had cracked the screen-less window open before drifting off to bed to let in the cool summer night air of Northern California. Some shabby lace was draped halfway across the window and a pathetic dark wooden table with one measly chair sat in petrified boringness was positioned to give “inspiration.” I had imagined this place to be something more magical than it is. Perhaps it’s one of those places that boasts about the connections and “lasting f...

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Uncle Freddy's Writers' Boot Camp

Submitted to Contest #304

I saw an advertisement in the U.C. Davis college news bulletin as I was sitting on a bench near Bixby Hall across from the Dining Concessions. Join Uncle Teddy’s Writers’ Boot Camp Program starts on June 10th Be there or be square June 10th happened to be the start of summer break. I was supposed to be on my way home to Tracy, California. I would have to break the news to my mother Tammy Wiggins that I did not pass my philosophy class and might have to take it next semester in August. I could just about hear her harping on about not put...

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1. Talking to Grass and Granite

Submitted to Contest #304

Shook. Kevin was "shook," once again, just being here. 55-year-old Kevin Woodward sat in the grass before a well-established grave and lowered one red rose to the headstone in the Saranac Cemetery on David Highway in Saranac, Michigan. Over the many years, he went to many burials here; his family was buried across the street, but he would never get over this one. Although he would go on to have a productive life, he would never forget this loss. “You know, it has been three and a half decades, and I still miss you,” Kevin said.“I’m going t...

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